


In Low Places

by Legendaerie, NeverwinterThistle



Category: BioShock
Genre: Anal Sex, Drinking Games, First Time Blow Jobs, Fort Frolic, Found Family but Kind Of A Bad One, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Is It Cheating If You Fuck Your Boyfriend's Side Guy, M/M, Mild Food Horror, Period Typical Attitudes, Sander Cohen Typical Warnings, Underage Drinking, and all that implies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 04:50:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11890389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: Two Truths and a Lie is a dangerous game to play in Rapture, but Kyle has never been good at knowing his odds.





	In Low Places

**Author's Note:**

> god, every single step of this was a goddamn blast, and I'm still extremely wildly honored to have gotten to work with Coco/NeverwinterThistle whose work I have treasured for years! it was kind of all on impulse since I shared the doc and they offered to tap in to help me get over a writer block and it just..... yeah. so much fucking FUN. and so l o n g too.
> 
> anyway! Happy 10th Anniversary, Bioshock! Thanks for ALL THE GAYS.
> 
> Also, to be more clear with those Underage tags; Kyle is 19-20 but looks a bit more like he's 17.

The bouncer is a woman, maybe; she's wearing eyeliner winged sharp as needlepoints, but Kyle’s torso is near the size of her biceps that strain against the confines of her blazer. Sports Boost for sure. Not that he's got room to judge either her splicing or her gender expression. Most of them are down in Rapture to hide from something.

“Go home, child,” she says, passing him back his woefully honest ID. Kyle crosses his arms and glares past her to a table of three other men all in various states of feigned innocence. He might believe Rodriguez doesn't notice his struggle, but Finnegan is refusing to turn even an inch his way. And across the table, peering over the rim of his drink at Kyle and grinning like a ghoul, is Cobb.

“I'm a personal friend of Sander Cohen,” Kyle dictates, and glances at her jacket for a nametag but finds nothing, “and I'm expected. By them.”

She follows his gaze. “Who, those three?” A snort. It would have been pitying were it anywhere else. “You don't want nothing to do with them.”

He shoots the three men another pointed look. “If this were any other night, I’d agree with you,” he says, and continues in a louder tone. “But I won a bet, and they need to _pay up.”_

At this point, Cobb cracks and starts laughing, a cruel jeer audible heard over the bluster and chaos of the Fleet Hall Cocktail Lounge. “Send him over, Clementine,” he hollers. “He’s ours for tonight.”

That gets him a few glares as he enters the bar, a VIP area even when Cohen’s not the one on stage. The evening’s performance was one of his shorter programs, _Patrick and Moira,_ so late in its run that Cohen abandoned it entirely to another director so he might focus on his next work. He's in one of his creative frenzies again, and Kyle has learned to tread lightly lest he break the spell.

He’s learning how to survive in Fort Frolic, but not fast enough. Which brings him here, to where he’s been promised the life and times of Sander Cohen without all the glamor and guile. There’s so much around his mentor both bright and dark it's like an overdeveloped photo, all chiaroscuro and blurred shapes. And they’ve known him for much longer. Cobb, even, had offered. Cobb wouldn't spit on someone if they were on fire, but he’d leaned in close to Kyle and whispered the conditions for the bet in his ear.

Edging through the crowd, Kyle hops up onto the stool between Cobb and Rodriguez. “I’ll admit, I was expecting something more like letters or files, but if you're buying, I'm listening.”

Finnegan waves down a barmaid. “I’ll get you started, but you're only getting one from me.”

“I’ll get you the rest, kid,” Rodriguez assures him, only a bit of a boozy drag to his words. “You’ll need them.”

“We’re gonna play a game here, Fitzy,” Cobb says, taking a sip from his beer in time for a round of frankly unsettling drinks to arrive. They're green with a bit of that cyan EVE shimmer to them, oily and unnatural in their iridescence. “Two truths and a lie. Guess the lie correctly, and we’ll take a drink. Get it wrong, and you drink.”

Kyle thumbs the rim of his glass in contemplation. He’s gone drinking a couple times with the others before, usually in little pairs or uneven clusters as the other is Cohen’s chosen lay for the night. The only thing they really have in common is a love of art and a dependency on the artist; but he's never been drunk around them all at once. Never had a drink with Eve in it, either.

But his victory over the rest of the members of the harem - a lottery on what theme Cohen’s latest piece would be, and his cheat of breaking in and sneaking a peek in hindsight was a terrifying gamble - has emboldened him.

“All right. Who wants to start?” Kyle asks, looking automatically at Cobb. Of the three they're the closest in age and, as awful as Cobb can be, he’s generally charming to Kyle. Slips him favors now and again; smiles more often than the other two. That his charm occasionally veers into the predatory is a risk still preferable to Finnegan’s bouts of violent temper, or the constant smell of liquor on Rodriguez’s clothes.

Rodriguez raises his hand to go first. Finnegan shuts him down.

“Let's not have him run screaming for the hills just yet. Silas, you're the freshest. You start.”

Seated on Kyle’s right, Cobb taps him in the shin with his shoe and preens.

“Sander Cohen hides acne scars under that face paint,” he ticks off with one finger, “burned off his eyebrows permanently with a lighter before he came to Rapture, and he bribed his way down here ‘stead of getting Ryan’s invitation.”

The implications of the last floor him, having hardly lived in a world where Sander Cohen wasn't a household name. “The last, surely.”

“Drink up,” Cobb says. “Who do you think taught Finnegan how to fake it?” He takes the punch the broader man gives him in the shoulder without so much as a flinch.

Kyle takes a sip and immediately regrets it - it’s cold and sour but goes down so bitter it hurts, like biting into a wad of aluminium foil and then swallowing it. Little aftershocks of something flash in his stomach, and he curls forward. No one offers to help him. He forces his chin up and wipes a hand off the back of his mouth, forcing a straight face. If he didn’t know better he’d swear Finnegan looked impressed.

“My turn,” Finnegan snaps. “Sander Cohen spliced himself a whang, later spliced himself a bigger whang, and did it at the request of Andrew Ryan.”

Kyle freezes in shock.

“That one he don't need to know,” Rodriguez chides.

“Actually,” Kyle interjects, “I think I need to—”

Finnegan snorts. “Why not? I had to learn it.”

It’s Cobb’s turn to chime in. “Yeah, and then you tried to do it to yourself, except you ended up with a—”

With a sudden movement, Finnegan freezes half the drinks on the table solid, including all of Cobb’s. The beer he was starting to sip is frozen in the act of tilting; curling his lip in a sneer, Cobb nibbles on the ice with a canine tooth.

“Don't ever ask Steinman to try anything with your family jewels, sugar,” he warns Kyle. “You won't get them back. Skip.”

“No, I think I want—”

“Skip,” Cobb repeats, louder this time, and the lazy grin he sports so much of the time slips. It's in his eyes, dark but glowing with warning like embers. Kyle takes another sip.

Rodriguez cups his glass in both hands as though waiting for it to thaw, brows furrowed as he compiles his list.

“Cohen’s crazy, Cohen’s a genius, Cohen’s a criminal.”

“Aww, Hector,” Cobb chides, drawing out the vowels as he melts his beer with a touch of Incinerate, “Already with this?”

Rodriguez ignores him (which rankles Cobb, evident by the way his mouth twists on the rim of his glass) and stares at Kyle. “Which is it?”

“... Criminal. Cohen’s not breaking the law with the things he does. There’s no laws against self-expression.”

Across the table, the poet points his finger at Kyle and jerks the tip up with a bang, then veers it to point at Finnegan.

He rolls his shoulders. “Crazy. Cohen’s sane as the rest of us. Low bar, maybe, but if we’re the standard he’s no worse than us.”

The gun points at Cobb, who takes another long drink of his beer before leaning forward, all teeth like a dog with distemper. “Genius, my ass. He ain’t made nothing but nonsense for months, now. Longer, maybe. Only talent he’s got is suckin’ cock and even that ain’t getting him nowhere these days.”

“That’s not true!”

No one in the bar even flinches at Kyle’s raised tone; if anything, Cobb basks in his fury, circling his finger around the rim of the EVE drink until it emits a tone.

“Awww, he ain’t never sucked you off, darlin’? It’s okay. I’ll make that up to you if y’ want later.”

Fists clenched, Kyle sits still, biting back on a retort. He hopes he isn’t shaking. Regrets the whole endeavour; he should have known better. Should have known the other three wouldn’t pass up a prime opportunity to fuck with him, and isn’t that just par for the course.

“Hector,” he says stiffly. “The answer, please.”

Expressionless, Hector lifts his finger out of Silas’ face, “gun” aimed at the ceiling. Then, he presses it against his own temple. Mouths, _boom._

“Fucking none of the above,” he enunciates. “Or all of them, depending. Just a matter of _perspective.”_

“That doesn’t make sense,” Kyle argues. “How can they all-”

“Drink up, you cheating son-of-a.” Finnegan reaches across the table to push at Hector’s drink. It rocks and melts as he touches it, spilling onto the sticky table.

Hector lifts the glass with a grimace for the wasted liquor. “A toast,” he says. “To art.” The drink is gone in three long swallows; he slams it back down onto the table and waves at a passing waiter. “Another round for me and my _friends_ here, if it’s not too much _trouble.”_

Kyle gives his own drink a look of nauseous dread. He’s barely had a fourth of it, and it hurt. Drinking the rest and another after that seems like torture.

“Like sex, Fitzy,” Cobb says in a low voice. “Gets better as you work at it.” He raises his voice for the next round. “Since we’re on the subject; Steinman, Sinclair, Suchong. Which one hasn’t our patron laid some pipe with?”

Kyle tightens his fingers around his glass. “Don’t be crude.” He flinches away from Hector’s chuckle, and Finnegan’s barked laughter. Cobb watches him, unrepentant.

“Aw, kid, I’m real sorry. Didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

“I bet it’s none of them. I bet you’re lying, like Hector did.”

“You hear that, Silas?” Finnegan drawls. “Boy’s calling you a liar.”

“Because he is!”

“Say I’m tellin’ the truth. Pick one. Humor me.” His smile hasn’t slipped but his eyes look anything but amused.

Rodriguez leans in, uncomfortably close, breathing liquor into Kyle’s ear. “He’s had Steinman, that’s for sure. Jus’ between you and me.” Kyle pushes him off. The look Cobb shoots the other man is unimpressed.

“Ain’t fun if you’re tellin’ him the answers,” he says mildly.

Rodriguez shrugs. “Fuck off.”

“That Sinclair’s a fancy man,” Finnegan says. “With his clothes and all. Just the kind of thing our Cohen likes. Suchong, on the other hand. Frigid bastard; I know one when I see him.” He clicks his fingers, ice crystals sparking across his nails.

“God, you’re so dramatic,” Rodriguez laments.

“Y’all are no fun,” Cobb says. “Let the kid decide for himself, would you?”

Kyle stares at his drink, stomach churning. He shouldn’t trust any of them, but on a sliding scale Rodriguez is the least likely to screw him over. Finnegan might be the most; but his advice has the ring of truth, and when it comes down to it Finnegan likes messing with Cobb as much as he does Kyle.

“Suchong?” he dares. At his side, Rodriguez gives a groan.

“It’s Sinclair,” Cobb admits. “But that’s just ‘cause the bastard baits too many hooks to take Cohen’s.”

Finnegan sneers. “Bottoms up.”

Kyle holds his breath and hopes that might make the taste better. It doesn’t. But the sting is less pronounced, less lightning and more static electricity, sparking in the pit of his stomach. He blinks and shakes his head.

“Attaboy,” Cobb says approvingly. “We’ll make a man out of you yet.”

“Fuck _off,_ Silas.”

“Naw, you don’t mean that.” Cobb throws a lazy arm around Kyle’s shoulders, ignoring the glare it earns him. “Martin, you cold bastard. Your move. Then, the bottom’s up.”

Finnegan seems to chew on this for a while, searching his drink for answers. “In _Moira and Patrick,_ one of the characters is a shoe-in for Cohen—”

“Horse shit—”

“He told me himself, get bent over a table, Silas.” Immediately, his calm returns. “Which of the characters is it? Olivia the songstress, Alistar the doctor, or Patrick the unfaithful lover?”

“Unfair,” Rodriguez says, slurring the edges of his words. “Does anyone even know what the fuck that play was about? Fucking watched it too many damn times, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Actually, it’s the kelpie who swims by the house every day, observing the slow build of their relationship, which is a metaphor for how Mister Cohen watches Fontaine and Ryan,” Kyle dictates smugly, “but the next closest match to himself is Alistair, trying to mend Patrick’s injuries as Moira taunts him.”

“You mean the milkman?”

“The kelpie _is_ the milkman. Didn’t you notice the seaweed?”

“There was a kelpie?” Finnegan rolls his eyes. “Fuck me. Getting too old for this shit.”

“Drink, Finnegan,” Kyle insists. “You don’t even know what the play is _about.”_

“Do _you?”_

“Fuck’s sake,” Rodriguez says. “Everyone drink, and forget about the fucking play already.” He’s swaying in his seat, several empty glasses in front of him, and it seems easier to just oblige him than argue.

Kyle shivers as the liquor stings its way down his throat, and shivers again as Cobb’s arm tightens around his shoulder and the other man leans in to whisper, “I don’t remember any kelpie in that play.”

Kyle shushes him. “It’s an artistic interpretation,” he mutters. “We’re all cheating anyway.”

“Kitten’s got claws,” Cobb says softly. “I like it.” He’s still too close, his breath tickling Kyle’s earlobe.

“I’ll claw _you_ if you don’t get off.”

“I bet you will.” And Kyle sucks in a shocked breath as Cobb’s teeth fasten on the tip of his ear. Some vital connection in his mind picks that moment to short out, leaving him blank and breathing shallowly into Cobb’s neck. Horrified, he feels himself start to blush.

“Fuck’s sake, Silas, quit tuggin’ on his pigtails,” Finnegan snorts. Miracle of miracles, Cobb actually withdraws from Kyle’s personal space, expression switching from playful to dangerous in seconds. And though the room itself is plenty warm, Kyle finds himself colder for the absence. He pushes the thought aside.

“Ain’t no one around here asked for your opinion,” Cobb says silkily. “How ‘bout you stay out of things that don’t concern you?”

“You telling me what to do, you bastard?” White crystals start to creep across the table, their progress halted when Rodriguez slams his half-empty glass down in the center.

“Don’t skip me,” he says. “I’ve got one. Then, Kyle’s turn.”

“All right,” Cobb says, sweet as cider. “What’s yours this time?”

Finnegan flags down the waitress, ordering in a sharp, low voice as Rodriguez taps the tabletop.

“The first review Cohen ever framed was negative, positive, or about Andrew Ryan?”

“Don’t two of those have to be true?” Kyle asks.

“What?” Rodriguez gives him a bleary look. “What’s wrong with it? That’s two.”

“Negative, positive, or about Andrew Ryan?”

“Yeah. What’s your point?”

Kyle narrows his eyes. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Gonna guess or are y’ forfeiting?”

“I don’t understand how—”

“Forfeit,” Finnegan commands, as the waitress arrives with a fresh round; these are purple and seem to have a life of their own, some dark liquid suspended in the center shifting as she sets each glass on the table. “Everyone drinks this.”

As Kyle watches, a blob adheres itself to the inside of the glass with suckers. “What the hell—”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered, kid,” Finnegan drawls. “Just drink it down, all in one go. You got that balls for that?”

“‘S like an initiation thing,” Rodriguez mutters. “I had to. Fun times.” His tone says the opposite.

Kyle lifts his shot glass gingerly, trying not to touch it. The liquid is almost opaque; he’s certain there’s something in there. Surer still when he sees that the other three haven’t touched theirs. Cobb’s gaze slides over to Finnegan.They exchange a look; Finnegan’s, challenging. Cobb is expressionless.

“And I just...drink this?” he asks. “It’s fine?”

“Sure it is,” Finnegan says. “What, you think we’d lie to you? You calling me a liar, Fitzpatrick?”

“No, I—”

“Better not be. Now, this round’s on old Finnegan, out of the courtesy of his gentle heart. You’re not gonna disappoint me like that, are you? Drink.”

With the glass halfway to his lips, Kyle tries a last appeal. “It’s safe, right?” Rodriguez doesn’t meet his eyes; Finnegan meets them without blinking.

At his side, Cobb gives an impatient sigh. “For fuck’s sake,” he says to no one in particular. Palm of his hand on top of Kyle’s glass, he lowers the shot to the table. “Watch me. This one’s tricky.”

“Oh, you bastard,” says Finnegan softly. “I knew you would. Fucking knew it.”

Cobb picks up the glass with his open mouth, tilting his head back. The tentacle slides down the edges of the glass, stopped by his tongue as he drains the fluid, then as he lowers the glass back down he sucks the octopus into his mouth and chews it.

“O-job shot,” he explains. “The EVE keeps it alive. Drink them together, they’ll choke you. There’s a technique to it.”

Rodriguez snatches for his own shot. “You could have shared that technique of yours with me,” he hisses. “The first time. Before I fucking almost died.”

“Naw,” Cobb says easily. “I’m savin’ my technique for Fitzy here. Figure he’s more like to appreciate it.”

“Yes, well,” Kyle says, pulling himself together. “Glad to see one of you doesn’t want to murder me.”

He’s not sure if he actually manages to drink most of the shot, since his grip on the glass is weak and most of it rolls down his chin. What he tastes is salty but not unbearable.

He fishes the octopus out with two fingers, eyeing it dubiously. It twitches. Dies, slowly, as the EVE drains from its system.

“You gonna eat that?” Cobb asks.

“Do I have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice, kitten,” Cobb says. “We don’t gotta do anything you’re not comfortable with.” His grin is sly, a warning on its own; he catches Kyle’s wrist and brings it to his mouth, sucking the struggling octopus from his fingers. Kyle makes a strangled noise.

“Christ,” Rodriguez heaves, swallowing the last of his drink and leaving the octopus in the glass. “Never fucking doing that again. Not after last time.”

“Give it here, then.”

Without looking away, Cobb reaches across the table and drags the shot over, tossing it back and chewing with his mouth open, leering at Finnegan. “Your move, Martin.”

He makes a noise of disgust and takes the shot with efficiency, lacking most of Cobb’s grace. “Feel like joining in the game, ‘Fitzy?” he asks once he’s swallowed the seafood. “Think you know something about old Sander we don’t?”

The octopus drink is hitting him hard, in dizzying waves; must be the EVE. He feels unstable. Oddly detached from the other three, as if watching them from behind a veil. He shakes his head. Closes his eyes and tries to find stability. Abruptly, he wishes Cobb’s arm was still around his shoulders; it might have given him something to focus on. His head is all over the place.

Something about Cohen. Something the other three might not know; and that’s the problem, isn’t it? He’s the rookie, the newcomer, the outsider in their circle. There’s nothing he can give them that they haven’t had for years now.

“Could just take the penalty,” Rodriguez mutters. “You’re too fuckin’ sober anyways. Still sitting upright.”

“Let him think,” says Finnegan, as Cobb get the waitress’s attention with a curl of his finger. “I want to see what he comes up with.”

And abruptly, Kyle remembers. It’s unfortunate; he’s been trying his best not to.

 _“Patrick and Moira,”_ he says before he can think better of it. “ _Higher Standards. Happy Chappy._ One of those musicals has a song in it. A...a really popular song, people really liked it. I did. Um.”

“Get on with it.”

He can’t quite believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “And Mister Cohen told people he wrote the song, it was his name on the musical, and he didn’t give credit…” Even through the liquor, the haze inside his head, Kyle can’t bring himself to say it. He’s spent the last few weeks trying to forget.

“Fuck me,” Finnegan says. “I’ll be dead of old age before you get to the point.”

Kyle throws a helpless look in Cobb’s direction, and gets a noncommittal smile in return. “In your own time,” Cobb says. Rodriguez is drawing patterns on the table in spilled EVE, and doesn’t look up.

He’s not supposed to know this. He wishes he could laugh it off as a lie; Mister Cohen would surely deny it. And yet.

“He stole it,” Kyle says in a whisper. “It wasn’t his. It belonged to Anna Culpepper, but he just...took it.”

“Hell, do you even know the answer to that?” Finnegan rolls his eyes. “Take the penalty shot and go back to the little kids’ table.”

Sudden fury lends Kyle a courage he normally lacks. “Don’t call me a liar,” he snaps. At his side, Cobb chuckles.

“He’s got you there, Martin.”

“Well would you look at that, so he does.” Finnegan glowers at Cobb. “I’m guessin’ you know?”

“Naw, not me,” Cobb shrugs. “Never heard anything about it. Not surprised, though.”

“Heeeector?”

At the saccharine tone, Rodriguez looks up from the table at Finnegan. “Ain’t got an ear for music. You know that.”

“‘s why you shacked up with Cohen,” Cobb hoots. Kyle is tempted to kick him under the table. “If I had to guess—”

“And you should, I don’t want whatever you just ordered for the table.”

“—I’d say it’s _Higher Standards._ The third act’s first song, _Anathema,_ ‘s too graceful for Cohen’s style. He ain’t patient enough for a song that takes its time. Am I right?”

“Could be,” Kyle says truculently. “You all have to guess before I tell you.” It seems only fair; he spends so much time letting these three walk all over him. Mister Cohen too, but that’s different. That’s expected. The least his other disciples could do is treat Kyle as an equal.

As if, he thinks, and resolves to enjoy his moment of control, however brief. However bitter. “Hector. Your guess.”

“Fucked if I know.”

“That ain’t one of Cohen’s songs,” Cobb says lazily. “Sounds more like somethin’ I’d write, come to that.”

“What do you want me to say? I fucking fell asleep halfway through two of those musicals-”

Even Kyle joins in the mocking Ohhh that goes around the table, pushing down discomfort in favour of a brief sense of companionship. Discomfort, because if Mister Cohen were to find out—

Doesn’t bear thinking about, really. None of them get that much leeway.

“Screw the lot of you,” Rodriguez mutters. “Whatever, I don’t care. Somethin’ from _Patrick and Goddamn Moira._ The opening number with all the stereotypes. Leprechaun thingy.”

“Naw,” Cobb argues. “That one’s got ol’ Sander written all over it. It’s tacky.”

“Well, it’s my guess, and I’m sticking with it.”

“Guess I’ll go with _Happy Chappy,_ then,” Finnegan says. “Stupid name for a musical, I always thought. What’s the opening number? _Buttercup Sunshine?”_ He snorts. “Sounds so much like Cohen, I’ll bet it wasn’t even his.”

All three turn back to Kyle and wait for an answer.

The problem is: when it comes down to it, Kyle has no idea. The source itself is shaky; an accusatory note on Mister Cohen’s desk, a half-written response, neither of which he should have seen, and both of which he’s done his level best to forget ever since. Neither bothered to mention the song in question. He’s tried so hard not to make guesses, but he’s only human.

The problem is: of the answers he's gotten, Cobb’s lines up the most with his own guess, and if he says Cobb is right he's going to have to drink whatever multi-glass shot the waitress is bringing over, and give Cobb what he undoubtedly wants. A victory. Another opportunity to remind Kyle of his place: beneath him. In every sense of the word, if Cobb has his way.

The problem is: Kyle is starting to want to give it to him.

It’s not much of a revelation; he’s been aware of it for a while now. Seems like every time they meet, Cobb wears him down a little more.

“Told you so,” Finnegan says, as the silence stretches. “Bastard doesn’t even know.”

“Or he knows I’m right, and he ain’t sayin’,” Cobb counters.

Rodriguez nurses the whiskey he snatches off a passing waiter’s tray. That nobody seems to mind says a lot about how well he’s known in these parts. “Doesn’t fucking matter anyway,” he says mournfully. “Could be all of them. Could be every song Cohen ever wrote. Number of times he’s borrowed my stuff. An’ does he give me credit?”

“It’s about exposure,” Kyle mutters, and tries not to think about several of his own original refrains that have been repurposed and rebranded over the last few months. Of course, once the thought is there, not thinking about it is about as easy as not letting his heart beat.

He tries to blame the liquor. This treacherous train of thought, it’s not him. He’d never think something like it on his own. Sober, he wouldn’t have dreamed of even hinting that Mister Cohen would...plagiarise. It’s the liquor, and the three bad influences around him, making him act like he shouldn’t. Making him see slights where there are none. He’s not like this.

It doesn’t even sound believable in his head. Some of his tunes were promising; some, he wanted to work into full songs. Can’t do that now Cohen’s taken them. And how can the exposure benefit him, if his name is never present on the programme?

So many things he can’t do, these days. Can’t lay claim to his own music; can’t make enough of it to stop Mister Cohen from taking other people’s too; can’t even pretend he really knows any other people in Fort Frolic, outside of Mister Cohen and the other lucky harem boys.

Kyle glances over at Cobb, who watches him expectantly, omnipresent smile firmly set in place.

Can’t fuck anyone who isn’t Cohen. That’s a rule without exceptions.

“Silas wins,” he mutters at last, shrinking away from the other man’s victory whoop. “It’s the one from _Higher Standards.”_

“Knew it,” Cobb declares. He stretches, triumphant, and his arm finds its way back around Kyle’s shoulders. Kyle doesn’t push him off. “It’s all in the lyrics; too damn smart for our Cohen. Hope y’all enjoy your penalty drinks, ‘cause I went ahead and ordered them extra strong.”

There's a wine glass with an inch of vodka, a stout glass of blood-red chaser, and a short straw in quadruplicate. The waitress reappears, ready to assist, but Cobb dismisses her. Swilling the vodka around the glass to coat the sides, Cobb ignites it and spins a hypnotic blue flame inside. He extinguished it by dumping it in the second glass and covering it, suffocating the flame and filling the goblet with mist. With a quick movement, he shifts the vapor-filled glass to the table, mouth down and pinning a straw beneath it.

“Breathe it in,” he tells Kyle.

He's already leaning in and sucking before the rational part of his mind can stop him; it makes him cough just like Cobb’s cigarettes do but it also makes everything stutter like a jammed film reel, skipping some scenes and slowing down others. He doesn't taste the shot until it's halfway down, doesn't feel his forehead hit the table until he’s being pulled off of it, doesn't hear Cobb’s voice until it's whispered into his ear.

“Stay with me, sugar.”

The glass of water pushed into his hand helps. Kyle comes back to himself in the middle of a recounting of some other drunken escapade, shoulders warm under Cobb’s arm. His thumb is rubbing Kyle’s collarbone, back and forth, metronome steady. Kyle counts the beats. If he was a better man, a smarter musician, he would make a song from this moment. Something jazzy and slow, bittersweet and a little unsteady, like whistling in the dark.

“... burned the place down? How do you not remember?” Finnegan is demanding, disbelief stamped on his features. Kyle feels Cobb’s fluid shrug as much as he sees it.

“Didn't say I didn't remember. Asked you which one.”

“Destructive bastard,” and Finnegan takes another sip of a new drink. Kyle shakes himself.

“How long’s I out?” he slurs, grabbing the arm around his shoulder to read the watch there, leaning against the solid body attached to it. “Shit, it's late. I hafta go. Early morning practice.”

“Yeah. _Practice,”_ Finnegan snorts. The arm around Kyle flexes.

Despite the rough patches he’s already forgotten, Kyle feels sentimental about the trio as he slides off the stool and onto his feet. He grabs a handful of bills (from the stipend from Cohen, he keeps most of it under his mattress. Old habits.) and slaps it on the table.

“Thanks for th’ drinks ‘n’ stories. Appreciate it. You’re all I have down here now, ‘side from Mister Cohen.”

The reactions across the table are a sliding scale of fucks given, from Finnegan at zero to Rodriguez at a solid three. Cobb is an unknown, grin frozen in place as his eyes seem to burn through Kyle, searching for answers.

“Ssssssssssshhhhhit,” Rodriguez draws out, barely keeping his head above the table. “We better buy you s’me better c’mpany. Silas, walk ‘em all home. I’d do it but I can't walk. Jus’... jus’ gonna lie here a bit.” He suits his actions to his words; drops his head down onto the table and stops responding.

“Don’t need no fucking nursemaid,” Finnegan grunts. “Least of all _Silas.”_

“He can pay for his own company,” Cobb says, but hops off the stool anyway, herding Kyle through the half empty bar and letting Kyle grab his elbow once or twice when the floor bucks under him. Too kind. Kyle is going to pay for it the moment they get outside, crowded against a wall with Cobb’s teeth at his neck, Cobb’s hands on his thighs, Cobb’s hair under his fingers as he—

“Which way?”

“Huh?”

Cobb gives him a long look, amused on the edges.

“To your place, Fitzy,” he reminds him, and Kyle frowns. With one finger, he sketches a map in the air, trying to back track. Cobb crosses his arms and watches.

“Third level of Sappho Suites, so that's… southwest of here?”

“Dead east.”

“Okay, well,” Kyle snaps, itching under Cobb’s smirk, jumpy with something he doesn't want to name, “you don't have to be an _ass.”_

“Yes I do, sugar,” he replies, cheerful as anything, like he hasn't been drinking almost as hard as Kyle has all night.

In response, Kyle picks a direction and storms off; three paces in and hands land on his shoulders, turning him 30 degrees to the right. Kyle walks faster, heart pounding in his chest.

Any second now, Cobb will make good on all his thinly veiled threats, his devouring looks, his self proclaimed need to ‘be an ass’ and put these thoughts in Kyle’s head. The serpent coaxing him to stray from Cohen, the forbidden apple that wants to bite him. It's all Cobb’s fault.

“Tell me about your new piece? Or can y’ not walk and talk at once?” Cobbs asks.

“I can multi-task,” Kyle says, too late remembering he'd planned to give Cobb the silent treatment the whole walk back.

“Sure you can,” Cobb says. “Bet you’re _all kinds_ of talented.”

The words caress him, even if their speaker keeps his hands in his pockets as they walk. Kyle finds himself speaking anyway.

“The new piece is going, but… I don’t know where. Don’t know if I like where, you know?”

The only reply is the faint murmur of conversation drifting out of the last lingering nightclubs and the _tick-whir_ of the security cameras.

“It’s rabbit-trailing, maybe. Don’t say it. It’s— hard for me to follow, sometimes.” Not sure if he wants to. Art is beautiful, art is terrifying, and Cohen’s praise at his work is both a medal of honor and a noose around his neck. “I’d share it, but…”

“Cohen loves to keep his things close to the vest,” Cobb murmurs. “I know. I’ve recorded with him a couple times. ‘Fore you came along. Oh, don’t give me yer kicked pup eyes, I always wanted my own business more ‘n I wanted to be a musician. Pays better.”

“Never figured you for much of a realist.”

“Course I am, kitten.” He grins, all teeth and dark eyes in the gloom, and Kyle thinks of the sharks that sometimes catch fish outside his window, shaking their heads as they tear their victims apart. “When all of Rapture’s got their heads in the clouds, someone’s gonna have their hands in all those pockets.”

That rings untrue somehow; nothing overt, nothing Kyle would have noticed if he hadn’t been present at the few occasions Cobb deigns to lend his voice to Mister Cohen’s work. There’s no _business_ about it. Nothing so mundane. Cobb loves the limelight as much as any of them, as much as all of them put together; he’s just better at restraining himself. Better at hiding how bad he needs it.

“You’re a liar,” Kyle mumbles. “All the time. Can’t just say what you mean, you can’t...just let people see you.”

“You’re seein’ me,” Cobb says amiably. “Catch you lookin’ all the time.”

“You want me to.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Kyle blinks, nonplussed, at the honesty. ”You do?”

“D’you even know what conversation we’re havin’ right now?”

“I know you’re being _stupid._ Confusing. Making everything different to what it should be.” Something tangles underfoot and Kyle stumbles sideways, catching himself against a glass display, smearing a handprint on the glass. Cobb steps in close, ostensibly to help him balance. Doesn’t step back when Kyle pushes at his chest. He glares up into Cobb’s face, the laughter there. “Why couldn’t you just leave everything how it was?”

“How Cohen wants it,” Cobb says. He keeps his voice low, eyes darting between Kyle’s eyes and his mouth. “That how you want things, sugar? You happy like that?”

“Fuck you, Silas,” Kyle hisses. “You know already.” And he yanks him down to his level.

Cobb’s mouth doesn’t taste like anything. He shouldn’t be surprised, they’ve been drinking the same things most of the night. Or maybe there is a taste and he doesn’t notice it, because all he can think about the moment it starts is that it can’t stop. If he stops he’ll never kiss Cobb again, and that would be a shame because kissing Cobb feels incredible. The way pushing up on his toes brings their bodies together, the sound Cobb makes when he tangles his hands in Cobb’s hair. It’s good in the way that the EVE was good, electric all the way down.

Palms on his shoulders shove him back hard enough the glass creaks under him, and Kyle opens his eyes to see Cobb glaring, as undone as Kyle’s ever seen him.

“What—” Kyle starts, and then Cobb is stepping back, glancing over his shoulder.

“Cameras,” he says shortly.

“I don’t _care_ about the fucking—”

“Y’will in the morning if Cohen sees.” Cobb has him by the collar, tugging him upright, tidying his hair with brusque efficiency. He’s still breathing as quickly as Kyle; his hands have a tremor to them, or maybe not. Maybe Kyle’s just projecting. He makes no effort to help. Has to wonder at how good Cobb is at this, clearing up the evidence, hiding the truth. How practiced it all feels.

Kyle wills his heartbeat to slow, his breathing to settle. As with most things in his life, he doesn’t get his way.

“So,” he snaps as Cobb pulls away, apparently composed. “Is this...another initiation thing? What, did you draw straws with Martin, or maybe—”

Cobb has enough sense not to laugh outright. But his mouth twitches; the look on his face is all forced patience. “Kyle,” he says slowly. “Cameras means Cohen. And I can handle whatever shit he wants to deal out t’me, it’s nothin’. But you’re another story. He can’t have you. That’s not happenin’.”

If Kyle believed him, he might be touched. Cobb’s a dozen things all at once, but altruistic has never seemed to be one of them. Yet he can’t bring down the hammer of judgement, the guillotine of denial, and reject Cobb’s reasoning outright. Something hopeful stops him.

At least, and he thinks about the octopus, Cobb doesn’t want to kill him.

Without another word, Cobb resumes walking, shoulders stiff and hands in his pockets. Decision made, Kyle falls into step beside him, booze and butterflies churning in his stomach; or maybe it's moths, like Mister Cohen’s most recent piece. A moth to a flame. Disgustingly trite.

A few of his neighbors are still out on their balconies as Kyle ascends the steps, Cobb at his heels like a shadow. He’s never spoken to the women - he swears the bouncer from the bar lives here as well - but one waves at him on his way up. Too late, he returns the gesture; she’s already gone back to her girlfriend.

He swears he can feel Cobb’s breath at the back of his neck. The keys clatter mockingly in his drunk fingers, his pianist's fingers that Mister Cohen loves so much he talks about snapping them off and wearing them around his neck. He unlocks the door. Turns. Cobb is standing two steps below him, hands tight on the rails, eyes burning.

It occurs to him that the monsters in most of the stories have to be invited in.

“... Do you want something to drink?” Kyle offers, turning the knob behind him. He has to wonder if he’s making a mistake; the biggest of his career. If he should learn to cut his losses and deny himself the things he really wants. Cobb could probably teach him how, he thinks. Cobb blinds people with attitude and excess, the fights he starts, the fires he sets. Pretending he doesn’t care about anything outside his little records store. Acting like Cohen doesn’t get to him.

It’s not true. Kyle is abruptly certain; the drunk man's surety, the liquored prophet. He knows. The things Cobb wants are burning him up. That, at least, is something they have in common.

“I could go for a little something,” Cobb murmurs with a thin smile. “Lead the way, Fitzy.”

His apartment is what some would call modest and others would call matchbook, but Kyle keeps it clean and fairly decorated. Mister Cohen helps with that too, sometimes discounting pieces Kyle likes and coming over to help him hang it with the appropriate lighting and respect.

The current showcased piece is from one of his older collections, that of a half-nude figure with his head encased in angular steel. A figure of guilt, judgement, and atonement, Mister Cohen had once said. He likes it, and doesn’t look forward to the day that it’s destroyed as ‘a testament to creative metamorphosis.’ So many of Cohen’s older works were burned for that.

He locks the door behind them and starts to get glasses down from the cabinets, fills them with tap water and takes a drink of his. Cobb holds Kyles eyes as he drains his, sets his glass down with heavy finality.

“No cameras here,” he says. “Not too late to change your mind.”

“I didn’t care about the cameras,” Kyle says. “You’re the one who panicked.”

Cobb shrugs. He plays with the empty glass, pushing it along the bench with a fingertip. “You don’t want Cohen seeing this. Trust me; you just don’t.”

“Maybe I don’t care. What’s the worst he could do?”

Finally, Cobb leaves his glass alone. Takes one purposeful step, right up into Kyle’s space; this time, there’s no smile.

“You have no idea,” he says simply. “And I ain’t about to let you find out. Just drop it.”

He’s so serious. Annoyingly vague, avoidant of details- but he means it. He really thinks he’s sparing Kyle some nameless hell. Ruination, maybe. Abandonment, whatever the worst Cohen can come up with.

It’s touching. It shouldn’t be; Cobb is never so selfless. He’s sweet because he wants something, and Kyle really should know better by now. He should be above this.

“So you _do_ like me,” Kyle says before he can stop himself. “It’s not a joke. It’s real.”

Something bitter passes over Cobb’s face. “Nothing’s real down here,” he says, and kisses Kyle.

He’s backed against his cabinets, heel thumping against the hardwood as Cobb devours him, pins him, smothers him. Kyle gasps and can’t help but cling back, even as he feels himself picked up and placed on the counter, Cobb fitting himself between Kyle’s legs like he belongs there. With the boost in height, Kyle doesn’t need to stretch so much to reach Cobb’s mouth and can rest his arms on top of Cobb’s bony shoulders.

Skillful fingers, more deft than his but calloused and scarred, flick open the buttons on his shirt, unzip his pants. It’s as fast as he’s dreaded, daydreamed it to be, and Cobb’s hands are warm as they slide against his skin. First up against his ribs, down his back, then sliding down to tug his pants and—

“I eat on this counter,” Kyle pulls away to hiss. Cobb bites Kyle’s lip.

“Yeah, and I was plannin’ to as well. That gonna be an issue?” Even as he starts to kiss down Kyle’s neck, Kyle can still feel Cobb’s smirk. He swallows, hard, trying to find reasons to really give a damn. They’re hard to hold onto, like trying to snatch fish barehanded out of a pool.

“I— suppose not,” Kyle groans as Cobb puts a little bit of teeth into his kisses, easing Kyle’s shirt off.

“That’s the spirit. C'mon, sugar, lemme drink you in.” Cobb yanks more clothes out of the way until he can wrap his fingers around Kyle’s cock and stroke it. “How’s that?” he asks, and Kyle can hear that grin in his voice as Kyle bites his tongue.

“Good enough,” he admits. “Nothing— nothing special.”

“Aren’t you demanding?” Cobb drops to his knees, settling in between Kyle’s thighs. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. That just shows you got good taste.” He winks, and Kyle has just enough time to react to what’s happening before Cobb sucks the head of his cock into his mouth, and with it all of Kyle’s sense.

He doesn’t think he has permission to grab at Cobb’s hair again so he grips the edge of the counter as hard as he can, curling forward and gasping for air, transfixed by the sight of Cobb’s lips around him, his eyes closed as he takes Kyle in deep, so deep his toes curl. It’s too much; Kyle throws his head back and hits the cabinets, squeezing his eyes tight because god is he ever too drunk, too unprepared for this. Mister Cohen would never—

Cobb pulls off with a sigh, and Kyle opens his eyes in time to see a string of saliva hang between the head of his cock and Cobb’s tongue before it snaps. “I know, I know,” he says. “I’m a work of art. Real breathtaking. I get that a lot.”

“You’re a _piece of work_ is what you are—”

“Jus’ sayin’. You can touch this masterpiece,” and Cobb winks at him before running the tip of his tongue against the slit at the end of Kyle’s cock. Kyle chokes back a plea, but does reach out to cautiously stroke Cobb’s hair. “That’s it. I won’t bite. Not here, anyway,” and Cobb strokes Kyle’s shaft with his hand, sucking on the head.

“S-Silas—”

“Mhm?”

“I’m _not_ begging,” Kyle says shakily. “I’m _not_ , you can’t make me.” His hands make a liar of him, gripping at Cobb’s hair, tugging hard and desperate. Cobb moans under him, whether from pleasure or spite Kyle doesn’t know, but it makes Kyle see stars.

The sounds Cobb’s mouth and hand is making is obscene, incredibly loud in the quiet room. Somewhere, his clock ticks in gentle metronome to Kyle’s hitching breaths, the wet sound of saliva on skin, the muffled sound of a radio several floors down. Cobb’s hair is surprisingly soft through his fingers, thick and well cared for. Hell, maybe he spliced it that way.

It adds to the feeling that this is a luxury he’s receiving, something he should be paying for. Reciprocation, here, seems like a reward in and of itself, but who knows what kinds of things Cobb is into, how he likes it. Frankly, Kyle doesn’t care. It’ll be good. He’ll make it be good. It’s the least he can do in return.

He leans his head back against the cabinet; stares at the ceiling, breathes in deep. His fingers twitch spasmodically in Cobb’s hair. It’s funny; he can last so much longer than this, usually. _Much_ longer. If he’s honest, most of the time he doesn’t even get to—

The tip of Cobb’s nose brushes his abdomen, and Kyle almost sobs. It’s the wrong move; Cobb pulls back, wiping his mouth with the inside of his wrist.

“You alright there, sugar?” he asks. Playful, blowing on the tip of Kyle’s cock. “Need me to slow down?”

Kyle closes his eyes. When he laughs, it comes as a surprise to both of them. “Is this the part where I tell you you’re the best I ever had?” he asks. Inwardly stunned at his own daring. But then, he’s not the one on his knees for another disciple. Cobb doesn’t even have the grace to be shy about it.

“Am I?” Cobb drawls. His grin says he already knows.

“Fuck you, Silas,” Kyle says, kicking gently at Cobb’s back with one ankle. “Or, better. Fuck _me.”_

“Don’t get bossy, now,” but still Cobb stands, wraps Kyle’s legs around Cobb’s waist and picks him up. For all that he’s skinny, he’s strong, and that has to be splicing. Kyle clutches to him, half from need half from fear of falling, and his back hits his mattress with Cobb on top of him.

He’s lost his shirt somewhere along the way and his pants are undone and clinging to his thighs, but Cobb’s still fully dressed and far, far too smug about it all. “Want this off,” Kyle says, pulling Cobb’s shirt untucked, snapping one of his suspenders.

“Do you, now.”

Cobb kisses him again, and when he lets Kyle breathe he’s completely forgotten what he was about to say. He settles for wriggling, spreading his legs on either side of Cobb’s hips. Bucking up against him. That seems to make his point; between them, they wrestle Cobb’s suspenders down, strip him of his shirt. Cobb is his usual unhelpful self; laughs as Kyle fumbles with buttons.

He’s such an angular man. Lean, wiry; solid muscle under his skin. Kyle runs his hands over the other man’s bare shoulders and wonders how much of it comes down to the splicing.

Silas takes one of Kyle’s earlobes between his teeth, flicks his tongue against it as Kyle shivers.

“I can’t believe you did that at the _bar,”_ he grumbles. “In front of everyone.”

Cobb lets his ear go. “Can’t believe you let me,” he retorts. “There I was, all ready to take a well-deserved punching.” One of his hands drifts down the Kyle’s cock, stroking leisurely. “And you just sit there and take it.”

“Next time,” Kyle says, “I’ll break your stupid nose. How about that?”

“Sounds good t’me, sugar.” Faster than Kyle can respond, Cobb leans in and licks the tip of his nose. He laughs at Kyle’s look of disgust. “So, tell me. How d’you like it?”

“What?”

“How,” Cobb enunciates, slowly dragging his hand up Kyle’s cock, “do you like getting fucked? Got any preferences?”

“Um,” Kyle says helplessly. It takes him a moment to realise that Cobb is actually serious, and longer still to try and work out what the answer is. Because if he’s being honest...

“Anything is fine?” he tries. “I don’t know. Usually it’s just whatever Cohen feels like, you know?” He can see from the sudden blankness on Cobb’s face that he _does_ know, and that shouldn’t make him feel worse than it does. He scrambles to try and rescue the situation. “I really don’t mind, it makes no difference to me. I’m flexible.” He throws the last part out for Cobb to latch onto, to tease him with.

It doesn’t happen.

“No cameras,” Cobb says softly, tracing his fingertips up Kyle’s abdomen. “No Cohen. Not in here. He’s in enough shit already.” The hand slips to the side and sinks its nails into Kyle’s well-worn sheets. “Just you and me.”

Another kiss, cutting off more questions Kyle wants to ask; cutting into the reflex, that ingrained habit to fight in Cohen’s defense. He’s not here. He’ll never know. All that matters now is Cobb’s mouth, the wrestle to push his pants off, to get them both bare and pressed up against each other.

“So if you don’t know,” Cobb resumes, because he can never ever shut up, “means we get to try some things out, yeah?” Another nip to Kyle’s ear that has him squirming under Cobb’s still half-clothed body. “Like that well enough, liked me suckin’ you off. Where else you want my mouth, sugar?”

“I—” Kyle groans, reaches between them and palms Cobb’s dick through his briefs. “Think I might want mine on this. Take these off, Silas?”

“Only ‘cause I like you so much,” and it figures that Cobb gets so much more pliant when there’s a chance of getting his dick sucked; he’s naked in seconds, letting Kyle push him onto his back.

This, at least, is something Kyle doesn’t have to worry about. Could do on autopilot, no thinking required- but he doesn’t. Partly out of spite; Cobb is a tease, has been all evening, and it’s about time Kyle returned the favour. He thinks of Cobb, breathing on the tip of his cock. Smiles to himself. Leans in almost close enough to press a kiss to it and pauses.

“Actually,” he says, “I have a better idea.”

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me,” Cobb says. “Can it wait? What, you want me to beg?”

“No,” Kyle says cheerfully. “You’re going to apologize. For this evening, and making me drink those _awful_ things, and chewing on my ear in front of everyone.”

“I told you about the octopus. Didn’t do that for nobody else.”

“And I let you win the last round,” Kyle retorts. He purses his lips, blows cold air across Cobb’s abdomen. Cobb twitches underneath him; the feeling is nothing less than blissful. “I have no idea which song Cohen stole. So we’re even, and now you’re going to apologise.”

“All right, Fitzy.” He runs his fingers through Kyle’s hair, smoothing it back then grabbing a handful and just barely pulling. “I’m sorry you liked it so damn much that you didn’t want me to stop. You’re a sweet kid,” and the tug turns into an affectionate scratch. “Can you blame me for wanting to get a taste?”

“You’re _terrible.”_

“Yep.”

It’s not an apology. “You’re lucky I want a taste, too,” he grumbles, licking his lips and taking Cobb in as deep as he can on the first go. It’s worth it for the deep, satisfied sound Cobb makes, arching against the mattress.

“Shit, yeah, that’s how you do it. Fuck.” A wet sound, maybe of Cobb licking his lips. “‘S good, kitten, keep at it.”

He’s not used to getting this kind of feedback, either; used to either tuning out a monologue or following orders. His moan is genuine, the praise traveling down his spine to curl hot and pleased at the pit of his stomach, push him to greater heights - or depths, as it’s applied here, as Kyle fights to take even more of Cobb’s dick in his mouth to wring compliments out of him.

“Liking that, Fitzy? Like me— ohhhh, _shit_ — like me tellin’ you how good you are for sucking me down so well?” The hand on his jaw doesn’t force him deeper, just strokes along the side of his throat with tender, trembling fingers. “Like hearing what that sweet little mouth does to me?”

Kyle groans, trying to convey just how much he wants to hear it without words. He’s struggling, saliva smeared all over his lips. He doesn’t normally have to go so far. Wouldn’t want to anyway. And now he catches himself debating whether or not he can manage the whole thing; whether the look on Cobb’s face would be worth choking himself for.

He’s thinking it might be.

“Easy now,” Cobb tells him. His thumb brushes the corner of Kyle’s mouth, comes back wet with spit. “Don’t need to push too far, sugar, you’re doin’ just fine there. Makin’ a real mess of me—” he bites back a groan as Kyle hums in agreement. “How ‘bout it; you want to finish things off like this? ‘Cause I’d sure love to come all over those freckles of yours, if you’ll let me. Could lick it all off while you glare at me, like you always do. How’s that sound? That work for you?”

It’s a thought. Kyle entertains it for a couple of seconds- even the glaring part, which sounds pretty reasonable to him. But, if he’s honest, it would feel too much like settling. He doesn’t want to go home in the morning wishing he’d taken things further.

He sits up abruptly, ignoring Cobb’s sounds of protest. “You leave my freckles alone,” he says. Reaches for the other man’s hand, lifts it to his lips. Sucks two of Cobb’s fingers into his mouth and moans around them, ignoring the hot flush of not-quite-shame that spreads across his cheeks.

“Look at you,” Cobb mutters, running his free hand up Kyle’s thigh. “Sweet Jesus, the things I’d do for you.”

Kyle releases his fingers. Swallows hard and makes himself look Cobb in the eyes. “Would you fuck me?” he asks. His voice shakes; nothing he can do about it. Not from nerves, not this time, but from want.

“Guess I could do that,” Cobb chokes, the casual words at odds with his voice, his eyes, the way he replaces his fingers with his mouth and rolls them over, saliva-wet fingers sliding down between Kyle’s legs to tease. As always, he’s good at that, and Kyle spreads his legs, trying to encourage more.

Sucking on his bottom lip as he pulls away, Cobb growls out a question. “Where do you keep the stuff?”

Kyle reaches up, blindly fumbling until he finds the little nightstand and yanks open the drawer. He just restocked it the other day and pulls out a handful of foil squares and a small tube.

“Not sure what’ll fit you,” he pants, watching Cobb flip through the condoms with sharp, intent eyes.

“I’ll make it work. You first, though,” and Cobbs slicks his fingers again, this time with the lubricant. Kyle starts to hold himself open for him, but Cobb gently slaps his hands away. “Lemme have some fun.”

True to form, Cobb doesn’t rush it. He goes slow, working Kyle open by centimeters, dirty talking the whole time. “That’s it, there y’ go, shit, you’re gonna feel so good around me, aren’t you? And you want it, don’t you? You want me t’ fuck you. Want it so bad, don’cha?” By the time he’s worked himself up to three fingers Kyle is ready to kill him.

“Stop— oh, god, stop stalling already, please, we haven’t got all night.” True enough, it’s already approaching 4am if he’s reading the clock on his bedside right. Something he can’t say he is with any sort of confidence, because Cobb’s having too much fun stretching him open and giving his cock the occasional little stroke.

“Now, what’d I say about gettin’ bossy?”

“Fuck— you—”

Kyle finds the condom shoved in his hands. “Open it. Mine are too wet.” Cobb grins at him, swipes his previously dry hand through the clear fluid beading and puddling from the head of Kyle’s dick. If he still had enough working brain cells, Kyle might have tried to put the damn thing on with his mouth, but he just wants Cobb to stop baiting him. Going to sleep unsatisfied is one thing; going to sleep unsatisfied after being worked over and wound up all night is another.

Cobb rolls the condom on and presses the head of his cock against Kyle’s hole, just barely pushing in. It’s a lot, but Kyle’s taken more; he hooks his ankles behind Cobb’s back and tries to pull him in deeper.

“Spread your legs, sugar,” and Cobb gently coaxes his thighs back apart. “Yeah, there you go. Wanna take my time with you.”

Kyle moans under him, but complies, shivering at the vulnerability of it. “Such— a sadist—”

“Little bit, yeah. Just wanna watch you take me, is all.” Cobb’s breathing just as hard as Kyle is, though he keeps his voice steady. “Slow and easy, that’s the way. Relax.”

“Silas—”

“Just a little bit more.”

“Silas— please—”

Cobb ducks down to press a kiss against Kyle’s neck, making him shiver again. “I know, I know.” And he bottoms out with a moan.

Kyle makes to close his legs again; Cobbs lets him, wraps them around his waist and anchors his hands on Kyle’s hips as he starts to move. The roll of his body against Kyle’s is downright hypnotic, and he drinks the sight in once he can keep his eyes open. Cobb is good at this, seriously good, and Kyle finds his pace an easy one to follow.

“Jesus, Kyle, look at you,” Cobb says. Ragged, panting for breath. The muscles in his abdomen tense with every thrust. “The look on your face. Wish I could keep it.”

 _Wish I could keep you,_ Kyle doesn’t say; it’s on the tip of his tongue, but he bites it down before it slips. He means it, though. God, does he mean it. He feels like he’s losing his mind. Swept away in Cobb’s rhythm, lost to anything else. This is not like anything he’s had before. This is not a convenience fuck, or an act of possessive entitlement. Kyle digs his fingers into the sheets as Cobb’s thrusts threaten to push him too far up the bed. He can hear himself; thinks he might be sobbing from it.

“Please,” he whispers, when he finds the breath for it. “Silas, don’t—”

He doesn’t know what he wants to say. _Don’t you dare stop,_ or _don’t just finish and leave me here._

 _Don’t forget about this in the morning._ But that’s something neither of them can ask for, and the pain of it chokes him.

Cobb shifts and hits something inside Kyle that shocks the breath out of him, lights his body up like his blood is half kerosene. “Yes yes yes yes,” he thinks he says, or wants to say; or maybe that’s Cobb’s voice as he arches over Kyle, lips at his throat again. Everything is sliding together like it did at the bar and he can’t stop clinging to Cobb, begging him, jolting under him from the force of his thrusts.

Like all lovely things, it’s over too soon. Even if they’d fucked all night it’d still have been too soon for Kyle to come, painting his chest with it, a couple drops even landing on his cheek from the force of it. As if from a distance, he hears Cobb swear and feels teeth at his ear again, hands clutching him close. Kyle gasps for breath, whole body shaking in the aftershocks as Cobb’s movement slows.

“God,” Cobb mutters, pressing his forehead to Kyle’s, “damn. Did you— fuck _yes_ you did,” and he swipes a hand through Kyle’s semen and smears it across the freckles on his cheek. “Whaddya know. I get to play connect the dots after all.”

“You’re such an ass,” Kyle moans, too limp and sated to put much vitriol in that. He moans again when Cobb pulls out, giving his softening cock one last tug. “Shut. Up.”

Cobb moves away, presumably to clean up, and dodges the half-hearted swing Kyle aims at him. “Those your claws, kitten?”

“You have… too many words… for right now…”

To his surprise, Cobb returns with a towel from the kitchen. (One of his really good ones, he will discover later, but fail to properly give a shit.) “Bossy,” he purrs.

“Better not be a new pet name.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Not when I got so many good ones to choose from.” Cobb wipes him clean and flings the towel over his shoulder, lying back down beside Kyle and shamelessly eying him up and down. “Kitten. Sugar. Brat. Fitzy. The list don’t end.”

“I’m going to start coming up with names for you,” Kyle threatens. “I mean it.” But he’s limp with exhaustion, implausibly happy with the world in general, and Cobb in particular. He doesn’t wriggle as the other man wraps an arm around him and presses against his back. Reaches for a blanket from the end of the bed, tugging it over them both.

They have just over an hour before he needs to get up again. Even that isn’t enough to ruin his mood.

“Do you need to open the store this morning?” he mumbles over his shoulder. Cobb shrugs against him.

“Yeah, in a bit. Come help me out?”

“Can’t. Need to practice.”

“Skip it.”

“Maybe.”

They lapse into silence, Cobb’s fingers idly stroking his stomach.

“Nice painting,” Cobb says after a while.

“Hm?”

“Y’know that’s Hector, right?” Cobb gestures towards the painting on the wall, the half naked creature, metal and man. Kyle squints at it. Cohen uses models for his paintings, obviously he knows this, from observation if not personal experience. He supposes the figure could be Rodrigues. Hard to know, with all the time the man spends hunched over one drink or another.

“Could be,” he agrees. “Does it matter?”

Cobb gives his shoulder a lazy push. “You got Hector plastered all up your wall, sugar. Should I be jealous?”

“You can if you want,” Kyle says. He’s of a mood to be difficult, he decides. “I’m not taking it down. I like it.”

“Bet you do.”

“You’re just jealous that Cohen never uses you to model. You...scarecrow.”

“Big words for a little kitten.”

“I still have time to grow a bit, maybe,” Kyle lies. “It could be me up there next time.”

“Sure could,” says Cobb. He’s slow, oddly amiable; curled around Kyle like a lazy lion. “I’d buy that painting.” He runs a hand up Kyle’s flank.

“I’d let you have it,” Kyle says. “For free, I guess. Better you than—”

“Shh.” Cobb kisses his shoulder; still odd, uncharacteristically gentle. “Don’t start forming bad habits, now.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Good boy.”

“Fuck off, Silas.” It sounds more like an endearment every time he says it.

Silence settles over them like dust on the top of Kyle’s painting. Despite his best efforts, Kyle starts to drift, the steady breathing of Cobb behind him melting into the rest of the white noise in his room like the missing instrumental accompaniment in a melody.

When Cobb breaks it, Kyle barely catches the words.

“If I told you you’re my Jolene,” Cobb murmurs in Kyle’s ear, “would you understand?”

His reply is slurred with sleep, the first thing that comes to mind. “I'm not really one for feathers.”

“You will be. Give it time down here, you will be.” Despite the joke, Cobb’s voice stays heavy. After another moment, he pulls Kyle just a little closer and starts to hum.

And god, Kyle wishes he could stay awake forever, just like this, caught in the limbo of night and morning when even Rapture quiets down. Wishes he could do anything other than feel his consciousness wash away, inch by inch, like water wearing down stone.

“Skip the practice,” Cobb murmurs against his neck. “I’ll open the store up late. Just...stay here, yeah? Just for a little while.”

This time, Kyle can’t find the strength to refuse. “Only this once.” He feels Cobb’s mouth brush his neck.

“Thanks, Kyle.”

He closes his eyes, and lets the world stop for a while.


End file.
